SFist Brock Keeling Insists On Being Mean To Zennie62

There are some people who are just not nice: in my personal experience, San Francisco blog SFist Editor Brock Keeling is one of those people, because of his weird, and mean treatment of me in SFist blog posts and in social media – and for no reason at all.

This little issue started in 2009 when, via his publication SFist, he, out-of-the-blue took to referring to me as “Our old friend Zennie” when I’d never met the guy before in my life.

Now, as a public figure, which I am, Brock has every right to blog about me, but to say we’re friends, or write and give others the impression we know each other, is was just not the case, especially considering the context our so-called “friendship” was brought up in.

To explain in brief, the first time was in 2009, when I blasted the then-new Star Trek Movie for first, not having a skyline that actually looked like San Francisco should look, and then for not having any black men around (a problem that J.J. Abrams tried to mitigate by giving a role to Tyler Perry – which some fanboys rightly spotted as having the smell of tokenism.)

So the SFist, under Brock, ran this blog post, with this title:

Our Old Trekkie Friend Zennie Finally Gets To See Star Trek, Questions the Film’s Diversity Quotient

Yes, I did. As a Trekker, who, with friends established the first Star Trek Club at Oakland’s Bret Harte Junior High School (now called “middle school), what Star Trek was about was diversity.

So that mattered to me. Of course, it wasn’t important to Brock, so I was made fun of. After that, I’d never met or seen Brock Keeling. Unfortunately, it did not stop there.

Four times, Brock, and then his staff, took to the habit of referring to me as “Our old friend Zennie” even though we still had not met. In fact, here’s proof via this Google Search: “old friend zennie sfist”

Finally, when SFist made fun of my very serious problem with the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences, I’d had it. The result was this email exchange in 2012, which ends with my trying to schedule lunch with him:

Hi

Yeah, you must have heard me typing my blog post. This one hurt, Brock. I’ve never done anything to anyone at SFist. Moreover, I’ve never met anyone there, even though I’ve asked you to lunch – never took me up on it. I don’t know what anyone looks like. But most important, I’ve used my blog not just to report on pop culture but to help people. With all that, what’s the deal about trying to make me look like a black buffoon? That seems to be the idea at times.

In the case of the Oscars, AMPAS invited me to apply for a press pass. I’ve SAID so in the video, and written it MANY times. Even with that, This “Jay” person writes ” SHOCKED — that he was not invited to apply for a credential, and thus far has not been able to score one. ”

THAT’S A LIE. A TOTAL LIE.

Again, I have been on the AMPAS press list for a year. Moreover, Just Googling my Oscar coverage shows that I’ve been on the case of covering NOT just Oscar but the movie industry in general. I had a TOTAL RIGHT, given AMPAS contact of me, that I would be granted a press credential. And I was not. And yes, I’m on the warpath because a non-profit should not handle its business like that, where people GIVE them the right to say “yes or no” just because they are the Oscars. That’s bull.

But the bottom line is I’m really tired of being made fun of. Sfist skips over what I do to out racism, and just looks at stuff like this. But no one’s ever bother to actually contact me about anything I’ve done. That’s wrong, man. Way wrong.

Oscar was the gauge for me to determine how much I developed my media power. How many people do you know who have a 100-blog network and contribute for SFGate.com, Examiner.com, Mediaite.com, and is syndicated by Newstex, and has his own national TV show, and who’s black?

Huh?

It matters even today; indeed, in a place where diversity is not always celebrated and its attacked by couch potato conservatives, it is. But now I’m fighting mad. I am a good person who’s helped and worked to help a lot of people. I’m tired of people making fun of me, sending death threats, racist remarks, and making up lies and stories about me. All of this must stop now.

Zennie

Brock Keeling
1/30/10

to me
Hey, Zennie, I’m a big, big fan of yours. You know that. And, when I
have a free moment one day, I’d love to grab lunch.

But: have you sent Jay Barmann your concerns? You can find his email
on the SFist staff page. It’s Saturday, so I’ll chat with him about
this on Monday.

Zenophon Abraham
1/30/10

to Brock
Thanks man,

I appreciate that. I do work hard, and my Craig Newmark interview was really good and I’ve got Phil Bronstein coming up, too. Let me know your schedule for lunch. Thanks,

Zennie

Zenophon Abraham
1/30/10

to Brock
Thanks man,

I appreciate that. I do work hard, and my Craig Newmark interview was really good and I’ve got Phil Bronstein coming up, too. Let me know your schedule for lunch. Thanks,

Zennie

I also wrote this to his assistant editor:

Hi Jay,

Thanks for the email. To place a total view of where this came, it’s just that the Oscar issue was a massively sore point for me because it was the culmination (grrr.., every time I think of that term, I think of American Pie), of a dream. But also it was an emergence over the bows, slings, and arrows, and N-word comments and I’ve gotten since I started posting a SFGate.com. (And some from reporters there, even though they think I don’t know it.)

Plus, Oscar did invite me to apply for a press pass.

I’ve much appreciated SFists coverage, but it would be cool to actually know you all. You know?

Thanks,

Zennie

(And I might add, the racial slurs and death threats I got while blogging at SFGate.com is one thing I don’t miss at all, but not the only thing. But I digress. Moreover, if Brock’s such a fan of mine, that’s a joke, because he did nothing to try and help me, just toss small bits of abuse. And I still had NO IDEA what the guy looked like. He could have been in the same room, and I’d never know him. Remember that.)

After that, January 30, 2010, that was it. No more bothering me, but no lunch either. I did try, as you can see; Brock did not bother to work to meet me.

Then, Kamela Harris won her battle to be California Attorney General, and I went to her speech announcing the news later that year. Delancey Street, where the party was held, was packed. While I worked my way through the crowd, a guy with a kind of wild, large, red pompedour hair style came forward and into my face and out-of-the-blue said something to me that was just not intelligible. So, I worked to keep going because I did not know who the person was.

Then I had the presence of mind to ask “Do I know you?” The man said “I’m Brock Keeling.” To which I did warmly shake his hand, but told him that I’d never seen him before – he knows that. We talked about having lunch – but he never followed up, even as I said that it was his turn to do it.

Facebook – Playful Contact Goes Bad On Brock’s Part

So fast forward to today. On the Facebook timeline “Brock Keeling” pops up on a friend’s notification, so I responded “The same Brock Keeling who is Sfist editor and called me “Old friend Zennie” when we’d never met. So when I asked him to meet for lunch, he never followed up. OK. To which my friend “liked” the comment.

Brock could have responded nicely, but instead elected to say “I’d never actually call someone a friend who wasn’t. And as I recall when we met, you were a Dick to me.”

That was not nice, and not at all classy of Brock Keeling. Remember, this is the guy who says in the email he’s a fan, who approaches me at a party without the normal introduction like “Hi I’m Brock Keeling,” and who now, after being really weird to me, calls me a name on social media.

In all, if I were the lawsuit kind of person, I could take the entire body of work of Keeling’s, rush to court, and have a good case for libel, even with my status as a public figure.

He’s going to say he never did it, because our friend deleted the exchange, but thanks to caching, it’s still around. For me, I’m done. There are some people who feel they have to be mean to you. Then, as someone black like me, when you ask if race is the issue, they say you’re being racist.

Okay!

Best to just walk away from them, but I had to get this on the record, once and for all.

For now.